Haryana to scrap semester system in schools from 2016

Chandigarh, June 2, 2015: The BJP government here has decided to do away with the semester system across all classes in all state board-affiliated schools in Haryana from next academic session.

However, the semester system in class IX and XI has been scrapped from this session itself, an official release said today.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has given approval to scrap semester system from next year in all state board schools in Haryana, it said.

The system will be continued for classes X and XII in the current year as the students have studied as per semester system in their previous classes, that is class IX and XI, during the 2014-15 academic session.

State Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma today stated that the department would conduct monthly test for each class from I to VIII and semester system would not be followed in these classes.

During an interaction session with representatives of all teachers associations and unions with Chief Minister and Education Minister on April 24 this year, there was unanimous opinion to do away with the semester system in schools, the release said.

This issue was also discussed in a meeting of Haryana Board of Secondary Education on May 8.

There was broad consensus that semester system should be scrapped because there was unnecessary wastage of time of teachers in additional examination duties and examining of papers for 1st semester of classes X to XII during September and October every year.

Due to this, the teachers were not available for the students of classes IX and XI during these two months, it said.

It was also emphasised that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), too, does not have any semester system, the release added.